Telegram to Enable Ad Purchases Using Toncoin

Messaging app Telegram will enable users to purchase advertisements using Toncoin (TON), with a revenue share program that will reward channel owners.

According to an announcement yesterday, Telegram users will be able to purchase in-platform advertisements with budgets starting at “a handful of Toncoins,” to promote bots and channels.

Advertisers will be able to select the exact channels where Telegram ads appear, while owners of channels with over 1,000 subscribers will receive 50% of the revenue generated from ads displayed in their channels.

The launch of Toncoin payments for in-platform ads follows the announcement earlier this year of Telegram’s ad revenue sharing program, in which revenue is distributed to channel owners in the cryptocurrency.

Withdrawals for channel owners will become available “in the coming weeks,” through Telegram’s Fragment exchange, according to the announcement Sunday.

“Channel owners can withdraw their rewards with no fees – or reinvest them into Telegram ads, collectible usernames or Premium giveaways,” the firm wrote.

What is Toncoin?

TON originally stood for Telegram Open Network, with Telegram engineers working on the TON blockchain platform and the Gram cryptocurrency built atop it. However, the company abandoned its plans for the network following a protracted dispute with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which alleged that the $1.7 billion ICO for Grams constituted an illegal securites offering.

After Telegram withdrew from the project and refunded investors from the token sale, a non-commercial group of community developers continued the open-source project, renaming it to The Open Network and launching Toncoin as the its native currency. The TON blockchain has subsequently been used to underpin projects like game and meme coin Notcoin.

Telegram stated that it had opted to use Toncoin for in-platform ad payments because of its “low fees,” and “high transaction speeds.”